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- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -7/+71Here's to hoping for a lighter version of Firefox, as Firefox was to Mozilla.
- geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -4/+55The SQLite engine is all of about 200k of code, compiled.
Yeah, that's *really* going to hurt things. - rdoger6424, on 10/11/2007, -6/+40Dear lightspeed,
Though appreciated, your support of the Cause is too obvious. Failure to keep your opinions palatable and discreet will result in us here at Microsoft docking your pay. Please think before you troll
Sincerely,
Stephen Ballmer
CEO, Microsoft Inc. - eean, on 10/11/2007, -4/+31"because some random douche on a forum"
Pot? Please introduce yourself to kettle. - rdoger6424, on 10/11/2007, -5/+32and SQLite is already sitting in Firefox code, unimplemented.
- tapo, on 10/11/2007, -2/+27SQLite is already in Firefox 2, and is used by Google Gears and some other extensions. It's there, it's just not being used for the Places or History system until Firefox 3.
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Storage - Ancestor, on 10/11/2007, -0/+19@donwilson2, Jernej et al.
I'm sorry to say that you're quite clueless. This DEFINITELY IS as step towards making things "lighter". Firefox (and Mozilla Suite before it) have used the whole RDF monstrosity together with the brain-dead Mork db file format to store History. It has been slow, inefficient and difficult to extend and maintain. SQLite is damn fast, scalable and easy to use from both user's and developer's perspectives. - BrainInAJar, on 10/11/2007, -8/+24donwilson2:
LOL! good one....
/stares at 4GB core dump from when firefox used up all the address space - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -4/+17awesome, i currently use amarok with database stored in mysql and it is super super fast. especially when you have thousands of items.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15Firefox 2 already > Safari.
I tried out Safari and it's nice and all, but it doesn't even have an adblocker.
It's a bit surprising how much I use my ~25 extensions. - Ninnux, on 10/11/2007, -7/+19I use FF because of Adblock and noscript chief... Find me the equivalent in IE and I'll consider.
- ericdano, on 10/11/2007, -3/+14They had that in Firefox 2, but dropped it. I had a bunch of bookmarks in an Alpha 2.0 version, and lost them.
- AhrenBa, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12Wow. This is awesome news. Will this speed up bookmark browsing? My collection of thousands of items can go a bit slow sometimes... :)
- Klowner, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11@ahrenba: Most likely, sqlite is actually pretty darn fast and just stores the database in a single file or directly in ram, this is nifty news.
- mvent2, on 10/11/2007, -3/+14Uh, SQLite is actually "anti-bloat" because it is faster and uses less memory than the Mork file format. Mozilla is not stupid, they are doing this for a reason.
- Bamborzled, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11...
I think "RTFC" (read the ***** comments) will become a popular acronym because of idiots like you. Quoth geminitojanus:
"The SQLite engine is all of about 200k of code, compiled.
Yeah, that's *really* going to hurt things."
SQLite will make Firefox less bloated, not more bloated. Oh, and also, Firefox's previous history storage format (Mork) really sucked. - sirdaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Bookmarks as an extension? Come on, thats a very basic need and should be part of the core browser.
- stygiansonic, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10No, Firefox 3 will be using SQLite basically to store bookmarks in a more efficient manner. If you have thousands of bookmarks, this will benefit you as searching for them will be faster/more efficient.
Google Gears also uses SQLite but just for offline storage of program data. SQLite has been associated with web apps just because of the support it has received (see article) but that doesn't mean it's specifically tied to web apps only. - Cl1mh4224rd, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11That's not what it's for...
- comrade693, on 10/11/2007, -5/+12@rdoger6424
What are you talking about? It's there for extension developers in Firefox 2.0+ - Oakes, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9But I remember reading several months ago that Firefox is going to support offline web apps:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/firefox_3_offline_apps.php
So I'm still kinda confused as to whether the two companies are duplicating effort. - elvenseven, on 10/11/2007, -6/+12What happened to KISS
- Ancestor, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6@rdoger6424
"sitting in Firefox code, unimplemented" is self-contradictory. You probably meant "unused". However, it is already used in Firefox 2. HTML5's DOM Storage is implemented on top of SQLite and it's also a great tool for extension developers. - Ryosen, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6the ite stands for "integrated transactional environment" and was invented by Charles Babbage in 1406 during his interment by the Franciscan Monks during which time he also invented the Turing engine, scotch tape, and porridge.
- Jugalator, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5"What happened to KISS"
SQLite is a database small enough to be useful even on embedded devices though...
Personally, I think their code could actually be reduced in complexity once they stop writing the bookmark data to a custom HTML file (that needs HTML code generation), and instead rely on a third party tool that has been proven in widescale use, and write this information to a more appropriate form of storage. The former implementation was a kludge to support HTML, this is more appropriate for what they've always been using that file for. - alphaone, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5That is your fault for relying on Alpha software.
- kahrn, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5@looksliketrent (#7228274)
I actually agree with you here to a degree. My idea is that they should include all those features as extensions, but those extensions should come with the browser and be enabled by default. That way if you don't want them you can disable them (similar to miranda-im).
Ultimately I think the ultimate solution would be to create a fork of Firefox and rebuild it all and remove a ton of stuff and call it FireLight or something.. I'd certainly help develop that. Hell if I was better at c++ I'd go do it now. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6Firefox 3 > Safari(Patched)
- falcon1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Are you serious?
- thegreatanti, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4That's because you're sensitive for FUD.
- zydeco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"So bookmarks are now stored in a database instead of a really junky html format."
Okay, so storing things database-style in a text file is bad. All that reading, writing, re-reading, caching, etc.
"Really using SQLite will decrease interoperability as reading and writing bookmarks will now require SQLite whereas previously it could be done with text manipulation."
Oh wait, now storing things in a text file is good!
"I would much rather see bookmarks moved to a clean XML format instead--how many bookmarks that people have that it really requires a database?"
So a junky HTML format text database is bad, but an XML format text database is good. How is the XML file changed when a bookmark is added? Is it all read into memory, modified, then written back out? Is it cached in RAM? What's storing the file in memory? You've basically described SQLite at this point.
And what if the Mozilla developers decide to store something else in the bookmarks file, like a thumbnail of the website? How would that be done in XML?
Honestly, SQLite interops just fine. I have yet to see a product that depends solely on the ease of reading a bookmarks file from Mozilla. - Oakes, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6I'm confused - are Mozilla and Google implementing two separate ways of creating offline web apps?
- Ryosen, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Gears is an API, an abstraction layer, to the underlying offline functionality supported by the browser. You will probably find that developers will program to the Gears API, rather than directly to the FF API, as Gears is a cross-platform implementation supporting:
Apple Mac OS X (10.2 or higher)
- Firefox 1.5 or higher
- Safari coming soon
Linux
- Firefox 1.5 or higher
Microsoft Windows (XP or higher)
- Firefox 1.5 or higher
- Internet Explorer 6 or higher - db113456, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2sqlite is very lite :-) OK, from a programmers point of view, it makes life a lot easier to have a unified, and structured interface to access , modify and save the data you may need regarding configuration settings, bookmarks, offline content, cookies just to mention a few. Now relying on string parsing and regular expressions to get your data from a text only configuration file or a bookmark file , apart from being inefficient, can also be pron to many errors and pitfalls. Having a database like sqlite to the storage, update, retrieval for you. For the average user, you will be able to dump the contents of the database , and import the data into another database. Needless to say, due to the nature of the beast, sqlite uses single files to hold the entire database, copying all your links, bookmarks, cookies, etc ... would likely end up being less of a hassle. Performance wise, it would be a lot faster, specially in finding the data, mostly due to indexes. And now you can actually implement things like relations between discrete elements of data. I think it would be a great advantage, and would make a lot of things simpler.
- Oakes, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Thanks ryosen, that makes things clearer. I guess the only drawback to Gears is that it must be downloaded and installed. Seeing as how Mozilla and Google have such a close relationship, I hope Firefox 3 comes with it integrated.
- kahrn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2This is a good move from Mozilla. As time goes on people are getting more wary about the future of bloat and such, especially due to the fact that most people in developing countries can't run it as they have systems with less than 256mb ram and whatnot.
I'd like to see an extension which can integrate with SQLite in the new release and load del.ico.us bookmarks on the fly so you could access the same bookmarks easily from system to system. - Jugalator, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I agree... It's much better to tuck out lots of old homebrewn code here and not reinvent the wheel in how you interact with your data. SQLite is already used by OS X 10.4+ and lots of other software, and it feels safer to me that they're using a piece of software specifically written to interact with data instead of creating custom formats and parse code for it.
- Ryosen, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Oh good, lightspeed is back with his nonsensical ramblings, incoherent babbling and complete absence of any understanding of what he is talking about save for the fact that he seems to think that the only reason that anyone uses a browser other than his precious IE is because someone said to use it on a forum. He's a moron. Ignore him.
- geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Not really duplicating efforts, Google Gears is the first demonstration of how Offline Web Applications may work. You can bet right now there are people right now tearing it apart, figuring out how it works, and spinning their own version of it for every imaginable online application.
The good news is Google's not adding anything to Firefox, just giving the developers some direction. The bad news is, it's kind of a lame use; I'd _REALLY_ love Offline GMail (same with a whole damn lot of us). Just because you can do it doesn't necessarily make it good or even useful. - looksliketrent, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5I honestly wish that Mozilla would, instead of including theses features, bundle them as default extensions. Session restore, bookmarks, spell check should all be broken into extensions that can be easily disabled, for those of us who would prefer the rendering and flexibility of the modern FireFox, with the memory footprint of the old.
- alphaone, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2@rpgmaker: I would try a Firefox Light too. I only use four extensions, three of which I could live without (must have custom rule ad-blocking). If they spent more time making their code efficient instead of all-encompassing, I think they could have a better overall product.
- dzorz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1OS X's CoreData (10.4 and later) uses SQLite as a backend storage.
- Oakes, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3This article suggests that they are indeed creating their own separate implementations:
"There's no question that Firefox 3.0, scheduled to launch later this year, will work with offline applications, said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's director or ecosystem development. What's up in the air is whether Firefox will use Gears' three application programming interfaces (APIs) to build its support, or whether the browser will rely on the work already done by paid and volunteer developers."
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9022721 - epohs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I think you're exactly right. Extensibility is one of FF's biggest (if not THE biggest) advantages in the browser market, having that extensibility go the other way would be awesome. In fact, talkback and the DOM inspector are already built this way I believe and nobody is complaining about that. I would like to see that philosophy spread to other areas of what we now consider Firefox's "core".
@sirdaz, bookmarks could still be a part of the 'default' browser, it would just be that they could be removed if desired. The majority of users would leave them and so their experience with FF wouldn't change a bit. - Jugalator, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3"Most likely, sqlite is actually pretty darn fast and just stores the database in a single file"
Yep, this is correct.. - cleverboy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Yeah, worth noting that Safari already uses SQLite for bookmarks. Safari also supported the Canvas object first too, so its interesting when you start to really look. When the Windows "BETA" dance is over, and plugins start to roll-in for it, it will be interesting to see what comes after the likes of Pithhelmet, SafariStand, and Saft. Firefox was the first browser that made me pickup extensions like popping candy. IE always gave me indigestion. Not sure how Safari will fare.
http://www.pimpmysafari.com/ - Ph03n1x247, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0I was disappointed with places having tried it in early Firefox 2 alphas - Although it was fast, it just wasn't ready and buggy as hell.
Having recently tried the Gran Paradiso alpha I can honestly say things have improved significantly, browsing and startup times have been noticeably reduced and the browser feels much lighter. This is partly due to the new places feature, moving to an SQLite back-end has really done wonders for the window load times - personally I can't wait for Firefox 3 to be released. - dbr_onix, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3"A database for just this?!? are they gone mad? what is wrong with everything stored in plaintext"
Have you played with Google Gears? If not, it basically lets you use Google Reader (Among other things) offline - It stores nessiary data (RSS items) in a database, and has it's own little "fake" webserver (it's not accessable outside the browser as far as I'm aware)
When you hit the offline button with the Gears-plugin installed, it downloads the previous 2000 RSS items (Takes about 15 seconds normally), and that's it. You can use the web-based RSS reader offline. Then when you return, you click the Online button, and it syncs the read/stared RSS items to your online version.
Anyway, my point is - This is by no means limited to storing Bookmarks (Which indeed would be overkill) - You can have entire offline web-applications running of this SQLite database (Bringing them slightly closer to be actual replacements for desktop applications) - fjodor, on 10/11/2007, -7/+7kind of off topic, but I have a strange feeling firefox 3 will be the opposite of what made it so popular when it came out. Full of bloatware instead of lightweightiness and customization. I will keep my fingers crossed.
- Atomic1fire, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1@xspinkickx
firefox is software -
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